Sermon 7. The Cross of
Christ the Measure of the World

"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth,
will draw all men unto Me." John xii. 32.

[Note] {83} A GREAT number of men live and die without reflecting
at all upon the state of things in which they find
themselves. They take things as they come, and follow
their inclinations as far as they have the opportunity.
They are guided mainly by pleasure and pain, not by
reason, principle, or conscience; and they do not attempt
to interpret this world, to determine what it means, or
to reduce what they see and feel to system. But when
persons, either from thoughtfulness of mind, or from
intellectual activity, begin to contemplate the visible
state of things into which they are born, then forthwith
they find it a maze and a perplexity. It is a riddle
which they cannot solve. It seems full of contradictions
and without a drift. Why it is, and what it is to issue
in, and how it is what it is, and how we come to be
introduced into it, and what is our destiny, are all
mysteries. {84}

In this difficulty, some have formed one philosophy of
life, and others another. Men have thought they had found
the key, by means of which they might read what is so
obscure. Ten thousand things come before us one after
another in the course of life, and what are we to think
of them? what colour are we to give them? Are we to look
at all things in a gay and mirthful way? or in a
melancholy way? in a desponding or a hopeful way? Are we
to make light of life altogether, or to treat the whole
subject seriously? Are we to make greatest things of
little consequence, or least things of great consequence?
Are we to keep in mind what is past and gone, or are we to look on to the future, or are we to be absorbed in what
is present? How are we to look at things? this is the
question which all persons of observation ask themselves,
and answer each in his own way. They wish to think by
rule; by something within them, which may harmonize and
adjust what is without them. Such is the need felt by
reflective minds. Now, let me ask, what is the real key,
what is the Christian interpretation of this world? What
is given us by revelation to estimate and measure this
world by? The event of this season,the Crucifixion
of the Son of God.

It is the death of the Eternal Word of God made flesh,
which is our great lesson how to think and how to speak
of this world. His Cross has put its due value upon every thing which we see, upon all fortunes, all
advantages, all ranks, all dignities, all pleasures; upon
the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the
pride of life. It has set a price upon the excitements,
the rivalries, the hopes, the fears, the desires, the
efforts, the {85} triumphs of mortal man. It has given a
meaning to the various, shifting course, the trials, the
temptations, the sufferings, of his earthly state. It has
brought together and made consistent all that seemed
discordant and aimless. It has taught us how to live, how
to use this world, what to expect, what to desire, what
to hope. It is the tone into which all the strains of
this world's music are ultimately to be resolved.

Look around, and see what the world presents of high
and low. Go to the court of princes. See the treasure and
skill of all nations brought together to honour a child
of man. Observe the prostration of the many before the
few. Consider the form and ceremonial, the pomp, the
state, the circumstance; and the vainglory. Do you wish
to know the worth of it all? look at the Cross of Christ.

Go to the political world: see nation jealous of
nation, trade rivalling trade, armies and fleets matched
against each other. Survey the various ranks of the
community, its parties and their contests, the strivings
of the ambitious, the intrigues of the crafty. What is
the end of all this turmoil? the grave. What is the
measure? the Cross.

Go, again, to the world of intellect and science:
consider the wonderful discoveries which the human mind
is making, the variety of arts to which its discoveries
give rise, the all but miracles by which it shows its
power; and next, the pride and confidence of reason, and
the absorbing devotion of thought to transitory objects,
which is the consequence. Would you form a right judgment
of all this? look at the Cross. {86}

Again: look at misery, look at poverty and
destitution, look at oppression and captivity; go where
food is scanty, and lodging unhealthy. Consider pain and
suffering, diseases long or violent, all that is
frightful and revolting. Would you know how to rate all
these? gaze upon the Cross.

Thus in the Cross, and Him who hung upon it, all
things meet; all things subserve it, all things need it.
It is their centre and their interpretation. For He was
lifted up upon it, that He might draw all men and all
things unto Him.

But it will be said, that the view which the Cross of
Christ imparts to us of human life and of the world, is
not that which we should take, if left to ourselves; that
it is not an obvious view; that if we look at things on
their surface, they are far more bright and sunny than
they appear when viewed in the light which this season
casts upon them. The world seems made for the enjoyment
of just such a being as man, and man is put into it. He
has the capacity of enjoyment, and the world supplies the means. How natural this, what a simple as well as
pleasant philosophy, yet how different from that of the Cross! The doctrine of the Cross, it may be said,
disarranges two parts of a system which seem made for
each other; it severs the fruit from the eater, the
enjoyment from the enjoyer. How does this solve a
problem? does it not rather itself create one?

I answer, first, that whatever force this objection
may have, surely it is merely a repetition of that which
Eve felt and Satan urged in Eden; for did not the woman
see that the forbidden tree was "good for
food," and "a tree {87} to be desired"? Well,
then, is it wonderful that we too, the descendants of the
first pair, should still be in a world where there is a
forbidden fruit, and that our trials should lie in being
within reach of it, and our happiness in abstaining from
it? The world, at first sight, appears made for pleasure,
and the vision of Christ's Cross is a solemn and
sorrowful sight interfering with this appearance. Be it
so; but why may it not be our duty to abstain from
enjoyment notwithstanding, if it was a duty even in Eden?

But again; it is but a superficial view of things to
say that this life is made for pleasure and happiness. To
those who look under the surface, it tells a very
different tale. The doctrine of the Cross does but teach,
though infinitely more forcibly, still after all it does
but teach the very same lesson which this world teaches
to those who live long in it, who have much experience in
it, who know it. The world is sweet to the lips, but
bitter to the taste. It pleases at first, but not at
last. It looks gay on the outside, but evil and misery
lie concealed within. When a man has passed a certain
number of years in it, he cries out with the Preacher,
"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." Nay, if he
has not religion for his guide, he will be forced to go
further, and say, "All is vanity and vexation of
spirit;" all is disappointment; all is sorrow; all
is pain. The sore judgments of God upon sin are concealed
within it, and force a man to grieve whether he will or
no. Therefore the doctrine of the Cross of Christ does
but anticipate for us our experience of the world. It is
true, it bids us grieve for our sins in the midst of all
that smiles {88} and glitters around us; but if we will not
heed it, we shall at length be forced to grieve for them
from undergoing their fearful punishment. If we will not
acknowledge that this world has been made miserable by
sin, from the sight of Him on whom our sins were laid, we
shall experience it to be miserable by the recoil of
those sins upon ourselves.

It may be granted, then, that the doctrine of the
Cross is not on the surface of the world. The surface of
things is bright only, and the Cross is sorrowful; it is
a hidden doctrine; it lies under a veil; it at first
sight startles us, and we are tempted to revolt from it.
Like St. Peter, we cry out, "Be it far from Thee,
Lord; this shall not be unto Thee." [Matt. xvi. 22.]
And yet it is a true doctrine; for truth is not on the
surface of things, but in the depths.

And as the doctrine of the Cross, though it be the
true interpretation of this world, is not prominently
manifested in it, upon its surface, but is concealed; so
again, when received into the faithful heart, there it
abides as a living principle, but deep, and hidden from
observation. Religious men, in the words of Scripture,
"live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved them
and gave Himself for them:" [Gal. ii. 20.] but they
do not tell this to all men; they leave others to find it
out as they may. Our Lord's own command to His disciples
was, that when they fast, they should "anoint their
head and wash their face." [Matt. vi. 17.] Thus they
are bound not to make a display, but ever to be content
to look outwardly different {89} from what they are really
inwardly. They are to carry a cheerful countenance with
them, and to control and regulate their feelings, that
those feelings, by not being expended on the surface, may
retire deep into their hearts and there live. And thus
"Jesus Christ and He crucified" is, as the
Apostle tells us, "a hidden
wisdom;"hidden in the world, which seems at
first sight to speak a far other doctrine,and
hidden in the faithful soul, which to persons at a
distance, or to chance beholders, seems to be living but
an ordinary life, while really it is in secret holding
communion with Him who was "manifested in the
flesh," "crucified through weakness,"
"justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, and
received up into glory."

This being the case, the great and awful doctrine of
the Cross of Christ, which we now commemorate, may fitly
be called, in the language of figure, the heart of
religion. The heart may be considered as the seat of
life; it is the principle of motion, heat, and activity;
from it the blood goes to and fro to the extreme parts of
the body. It sustains the man in his powers and
faculties; it enables the brain to think; and when it is
touched, man dies. And in like manner the sacred doctrine
of Christ's Atoning Sacrifice is the vital principle on
which the Christian lives, and without which Christianity
is not. Without it no other doctrine is held profitably;
to believe in Christ's divinity, or in His manhood, or in
the Holy Trinity, or in a judgment to come, or in the
resurrection of the dead, is an untrue belief, not
Christian faith, unless we receive also the doctrine of
Christ's sacrifice. On the other hand, to receive {90} it
presupposes the reception of other high truths of the
Gospel besides; it involves the belief in Christ's true
divinity, in His true incarnation, and in man's sinful
state by nature; and it prepares the way to belief in the
sacred Eucharistic feast, in which He who was once
crucified is ever given to our souls and bodies, verily
and indeed, in His Body and in His Blood. But again, the
heart is hidden from view; it is carefully and securely
guarded; it is not like the eye set in the forehead,
commanding all, and seen of all: and so in like manner
the sacred doctrine of the Atoning Sacrifice is not one
to be talked of, but to be lived upon; not to be put
forth irreverently, but to be adored secretly; not to be
used as a necessary instrument in the conversion of the
ungodly, or for the satisfaction of reasoners of this
world, but to be unfolded to the docile and obedient; to
young children, whom the world has not corrupted; to the
sorrowful, who need comfort; to the sincere and earnest,
who need a rule of life; to the innocent, who need
warning; and to the established, who have earned the
knowledge of it.

One more remark I shall make, and then conclude. It
must not be supposed, because the doctrine of the Cross
makes us sad, that therefore the Gospel is a sad
religion. The Psalmist says, "They that sow in tears
shall reap in joy;" and our Lord says, "They
that mourn shall be comforted." Let no one go away
with the impression that the Gospel makes us take a
gloomy view of the world and of life. It hinders us
indeed from taking a superficial view, and finding a vain
transitory joy in what we see; but it forbids our
immediate {91} enjoyment, only to grant enjoyment in truth and
fulness afterwards. It only forbids us to begin with
enjoyment. It only says, If you begin with pleasure, you
will end with pain. It bids us begin with the Cross of
Christ, and in that Cross we shall at first find sorrow,
but in a while peace and comfort will rise out of that
sorrow. That Cross will lead us to mourning, repentance,
humiliation, prayer, fasting; we shall sorrow for our
sins, we shall sorrow with Christ's sufferings; but all
this sorrow will only issue, nay, will be undergone in a
happiness far greater than the enjoyment which the world
gives,though careless worldly minds indeed will not
believe this, ridicule the notion of it, because they
never have tasted it, and consider it a mere matter of
words, which religious persons think it decent and proper
to use, and try to believe themselves, and to get others
to believe, but which no one really feels. This is what
they think; but our Saviour said to His disciples,
"Ye now therefore have sorrow, but I will see you
again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man
taketh from you." ... "Peace I leave with you;
My peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I
unto you." [John xvi. 22; xiv. 27.] And St. Paul
says, "The natural man receiveth not the things of
the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him;
neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned." "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,
neither have entered into the heart of man, the things
which God hath prepared for them that love Him." [1
Cor. ii. 9, 14.] And thus the Cross of Christ, as telling
us of our redemption {92} as well as of His sufferings, wounds
us indeed, but so wounds as to heal also.

And thus, too, all that is bright and beautiful, even
on the surface of this world, though it has no substance,
and may not suitably be enjoyed for its own sake, yet is
a figure and promise of that true joy which issues out of
the Atonement. It is a promise beforehand of what is to
be: it is a shadow, raising hope because the substance is
to follow, but not to be rashly taken instead of the
substance. And it is God's usual mode of dealing with us,
in mercy to send the shadow before the substance, that we
may take comfort in what is to be, before it comes. Thus
our Lord before His Passion rode into Jerusalem in
triumph, with the multitudes crying Hosanna, and strewing
His road with palm branches and their garments. This was
but a vain and hollow pageant, nor did our Lord take
pleasure in it. It was a shadow which stayed not, but
flitted away. It could not be more than a shadow, for the
Passion had not been undergone by which His true triumph
was wrought out. He could not enter into His glory before
He had first suffered. He could not take pleasure in this
semblance of it, knowing that it was unreal. Yet that
first shadowy triumph was the omen and presage of the
true victory to come, when He had overcome the sharpness
of death. And we commemorate this figurative triumph on
the last Sunday in Lent, to cheer us in the sorrow of the
week that follows, and to remind us of the true joy which
comes with Easter-Day.

And so, too, as regards this world, with all its
enjoyments, yet disappointments. Let us not trust it; let {93} us not give our hearts to it; let us not begin with it.
Let us begin with faith; let us begin with Christ; let us
begin with His Cross and the humiliation to which it
leads. Let us first be drawn to Him who is lifted up,
that so He may, with Himself, freely give us all things.
Let us "seek first the kingdom of God and His
righteousness," and then all those things of this
world "will be added to us." They alone are
able truly to enjoy this world, who begin with the world
unseen. They alone enjoy it, who have first abstained
from it. They alone can truly feast, who have first
fasted; they alone are able to use the world, who have
learned not to abuse it; they alone inherit it, who take
it as a shadow of the world to come, and who for that
world to come relinquish it.